Best-Of-Breed EAM With Ease Of Integration

ENTERPRISEASSETMANAGEMENTLAWSON INSIGHT
Best-of-breed EAM 2006
Best-of-breed EAM with Ease of IntegrationAsset-intensive companies are continuously looking for ways to improve the management and maintenance of their plant and equipment. For these organizations, the effectiveness of their maintenance strategy directly impacts their bottom line. Over the years companies have looked towards a variety of software solutions to provide them with the functionality they need to maximize capacity and utilization, minimize downtime and provide transparency across all areas of business. This insight paper discusses why asset-intensive companies need best-of-breed (BoB) maintenance functionality, and more importantly why it is crucial for the solution to easily integrate with the rest of the business. Ultimately it explains why having a maintenance solution with the ability to marry these two requirements is the best choice. Many asset-intensive companies have sought to implement best-of-breed maintenance systems such as Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) or a more advanced Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solution. They found that these specialized BoB solutions have better features, functionality and usability compared to the maintenance offering that simply "came as part" of their generic corporate solutions. However, CMMS and EAM solutions often stand alone from the other business systems. If a BoB solution cannot be incorporated and linked to the rest of the business, the benefits of its rich functionality are outweighed by its lack of integration. Companies today are placing more emphasis on having integrated maintenance solutions that link all departments and processes within the business. There are several reasons for this including the need for more agility to compete globally; the pressure to achieve the highest level of productivity at the lowest cost; and the need to make faster and better business decisions. Forward-thinking organizations have introduced best practices such as Reliability-centered Maintenance (RCM) and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) to help support these increased needs in the asset management area. However, these techniques can only be successful if maintenance is integrated with the rest of the business. Essentially companies have come to realize that inte-grated solutions present more opportunity to increase revenue and profit. To remain competitive, asset-intensive organizations have a number of choices: If they are dissatisfied with their current corporate solution, they may be looking to replace it with a comprehensive, integrated enterprise system that has best-of-breed maintenance functionality at the core-analysts refer to these solutions as EAM focused ERP. Replacing an entire enterprise solution, however, usually requires significant investments of both time and money. Therefore it is more likely that many companies are looking to replace their existing stand-alone maintenance system with a BoB solution that can be easily integrated with their current corporate solution without the complexity, skills and money often needed. Whichever choice is made, the message is clear: specialized maintenance functionality and the ability to integrate are both critical requirements for the future success of an asset-intensive company.
MSR-06-100-1-en Best-of-breed EAM
Already Made Your Enterprise Choice? It's Not Too Late for Best-of-breed EAM As companies are starting to focus more on growth and less on cutting cost, the notion of industry-specific functionality as a source of competitive advantage is on the rise. Companies are demanding specialized, best-of-breed maintenance function-ality more than ever before. At the same time they also need the maintenance function to be integrated with the rest of the business. Taking advantage of best-of-breed functionality does not always mean replacing the entire enterprise application. A leading-edge best-of-breed maintenance solution will easily integrate with the rest of the business systems, so information can be shared across the company, providing the single view of the business.
What Makes a Good Best-of-breed EAM Solution? Naturally, an asset-intensive company's focus is on the solution's maintenance capabilities. It should include leading-edge asset management functionalities and allow the company to create the most... [download for more]